F-14 Tomcat Group Build idea...

OK that's it now, I've given up on the Hasegawa, I'm gonna find myself another 1/48 Cat A, any recomendation ???

Chuck: that cockpit is looking good; you say that's 1/72 scale? Wow, I don't know that I've ever seen 1/72 cockpit detailing look that good. At least not anything that I've ever built. Trying to detail a cockpit in that scale scares me, so I usually end up closing the canopies.

Interesting the way Fujimi has done the bottom fuselage, with the engine nacelles. That may be a lot of fun to build.

I was reading the thread about the acrobatic teams GB, and they've included "theoretical and what if's". So, I got this wild idea to do an F-14 in Blue Angels colors...well, there IS that F-14A currently in "maintenance", awaiting a new body. Ha ha. Or imagine the Canadian Snowbirds flying F-18's. I know, I'll do a Thunderbirds B-1B, yeah!

Ok it's been awhile since this little endeavour has begun. So at this point I am again building the Fujimi 72nd scale F-14A, cockpit has been installed as well as the gear bay. The engineering is a little different compared to the Hase version.

The engine nacelles are separate LH/RH halves and are added as separate parts to the lower fuselage section. No detail set will be used as the short ending date of this Group build will negate the use of any. I don't get much time to build only on weekends. And I like to take my time.

Isn't it rather inconvenient when you run out of a certain color. Like White for instance. Fortunately I had enough to at least get most of the airframe together.
There is a nasty little step that will need to be worked on where the forward fuselage joins the rear half of the main body. This will be a Desert Storm bird and at this moment could be a VF-32 Swordsman or a VF-41 Tomcatter with nose art. Built the VF-84 Jolly Roger companion F-14A a few years ago. I may go with this set in the end.

One more week left in January, progress is steady as I juggle a few other builds that are in work. At this point is to build and install the engine nacelles and then do some seamwork. The wings have already been built and will be painted next weekend. So in a nutshell my Tomcat is in it's raw state before any seamwork will be done.


Everyone else seems to be doing fine. Keep up the good work gang. Some real fine images coming across the boards here.

Y'all have a Fine Navy Day!!!

Chuck
Fly Navy

Hi everyone. I am happy to report that I have successfully disassembled, modified, and re-installed my Black Box cockpit into the fuselage.

Fortunately, I think the cockpit tub was glued to the interior paint, it came out fairly easily. I sanded down the bottom of the tub, and when I re-installed it, I used a couple of shims, made from .015" sheet styrene. Look at the first two photos; the first is the original installation, I put a green arrow to show the gap, that cockpit tub was seriously out of kilter. The second is a photo of the re-installed cockpit, MUCH BETTER!

(Oh yeah, I broke the front side panels during painting...D'oah!)





And I think filling in that huge abyss in front of the instrument panel hood just got a bit easier, I again used .015" styrene sheet and made a "support", spanning from one fuselage half to the other, onto which a muthuh-load of putty will now be applied.



Whew! I think I really dodged a bullet on this one!

MACooke, acetone will work but go easy on it as it will also eat your plastic if you're not careful! If you painted the fuselage sides before gluing in the pit, you might be able to gently break the bond because maybe you were lucky and bonded it to the paint and not the bare plastic.
I picked up some more supplies from the LHS yesterday. Hopefully, today I'll have the weapons and gear wells painted on my F-14A and the fuselage assembly complete on my F-14B. That' the plan anyway!

yeah, it's pretty cold. I saw that thread you posted Mitchell and I don't wish it on anyone. I just like a good snow every once in a while. I like to ski and a nice snow storm with power and cable makes for a nice quiet 'desk' day. Last night it was -14 with windchill, 10 without. Stay warm and it's a perfect day for the bench. I am pretty much done with the cockpit, time to finish the lower fus so I can stick them together. I'll post pics when I have that done. How's progress with everyone else?

Well since I last posted on here, I was not able to prime the cockpit that night because I got too busy with other things,and before I could get a chance to do it, a cold front came through with 30-40 MPH winds. I have had to wait until today for the wind to die down enough to be able to spray outside.( I desperately need a spray booth)So I will try to have completed cockpit photos posted within the week.

Later on....

Lucky? I wouldn't want to be in the northeast or upper midwest. Read this from Foxnews.com.....

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,145169,00.html

Jon, Asheville sounds great compared to Cincinnati, at least right now. It was 1 deg. F overnight, it has warmed up to 10 F at noon.

And this is warm compared to places such as Minneapolis, Fargo, etc.

I heard acetone might work but you might want to keep asking. Those cockpit shots look great though. Very nice work on the knobs, fine detail etc. Yesterday was limited at the bench due to some anti-mousing in the kitchen (of all places!) Hopefully today will yield some quality bench moments. Anyone in the northeast? Lucky folks are getting some snow! We merely got dusted,again.

Uh, I spotted a major flaw in my cockpit lastnight. It's crooked; it sits lower on the right side than on the left. I dry-fitted the seats in, and looking at the forward fuselage head on, the seats were off center by a few degrees.



What can I use to de-bond CA glue and not harm styrene?

Looking good, MACooke!The seats look great, even if they are the wimpy ones,(),and the pit looks oustanding!

Thanks Daniel!

I can't wait to either a) get replacement parts in for my crippled F-14A, or better yet, b) get my hands on an F-14B Jolly Rogers "Santa Cat" that an acquaintance is holding for me. Not that I want to do a "Jolly Rogers" bird, but the A and B models have the COOL seats!!

And what other bird am I going to model next? A bunch of F-4 Phantoms...'cause they all have cool seats!

That's some great looking progress MACooke. I especially like the ejection seats, even if they are the "boring" type. Thanks for the pics.

I got some good work done on my cat last night. Mainly trying to get the front wheel well walls (try saying that ten times fast!!) to fit on the bottom of the cockpit. Then trying to get that whole asembly to fit in the forward fuselage without a huge gap.

BTW, for those other people doing the academy kit, I found it's best if you glue the walls to the bottom of the cockpit first. Then glue that whole assembly to the bottom fuselage piece, and finally, glue that assembly to the upper fuselage. I tried it the other way and it just doesn't work.

Waw, you've made some progress...

For some reason, my cat-building has been blocked (psychological maybe), but I'm determined that I will work on it tomorrow.
The Hase-cockpit however will find it's way to the sparesbox, because I'll look for the BB version.
Why ? It just doesn't seem right with the AM seats....

Hi all, here are a few progress pics.

Here is the BB cockpit, both out of the fuselage and installed. The RIO's stick was broken when I opened the set...any suggestions?





I broke the forward sidewall pieces to the BB cockpit...I hate when that happens. I finally got the ejection seats dullcoated.



And the rear fuselage is pre-shaded.

that's the guy bstrump! 03cobra... I tried to re-route that package to my house but I failed...

Hey!Hey! How's everyone doing tonight? Armorman, I know of the guy you're talking about. He goes by the name cobra03 or 03cobra. I haven't seen or heard much from him of late, though.

I have a little bit of progress to report tonight. Landing gear and weapons are assembled. Not much but after Mad Komet Day, I was very low on glue so I haven't been able to do much of anything this week.

I did however swing by the post office today and what do you suppose was waiting for me? A package from GreatModels containing an F-14D, CAM Decals for F-14Ds from VF-2 and VF-31and Hasegawa Weapons Set VII. So it looks like another Black-tail CAG coming up!

gotta say reg- I'm not sure on those seats... might wanna post an alternate thread on the Forum and try that. There is a Naval Aviator in this Forum somewhere. For sure he'd know. I think he was on our thread back in the beginning. You might want to start there. He had a picture of a Ford Mustang in his sig, maybe you can email him. The sucky part is flipping through those pages!
Mitchell- the sharpened toothpick does well for me. As yet I have not found another way that works better unless some nano-bot can paint them for me. I think you should be okay on the thinners issue. I have not had any problems. But I have not used ;acquer thinner on resin yet... that link you wanted to the GB badge is http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v420/reggiethedorf/smallF-14GB.jpg -don't forget to start with .

Reg:

Try going to the ejection site, here's the link:

http://www.ejectionsite.com/

Also there's a great F-14 reference page, someone here gave me the link (pingtang or bstrump or armorman or someone....), here it is:

http://www.anft.net/f-14/

Hope this helps. As far as using a "teeny" bit of paint, I carve down the tip of a toothpick (wood, duh) and dab on an "eensy-weensy" bit of paint.

Reg you're gonna catch crap for that one!

MACooke - i usually dab on paint with a dulled thumbtack, you know the kind with the colored plastic handles ? i file them down with a metal file then use that to hold a teeny dab of paint.


can anyone help me out with my ejection seat question ?

Hi everyone. Once again Mitch is stymied...I'm doing the dry-brushing portion of detailing the BB cockpit. I got the side panels done, all those knobs and switches really weren't difficult. However (a BIG HOWEVER), I'm having a great deal of difficulty doing the "instruments" on the main panels. It seems I either have no paint in my brush, or too much. Either the instrument picks up no paint, or else it is totally covered in paint. How does everyone do the instruments??

Are the resin parts affected by paint thinners (enamel or lacquer)? I'm about to totally strip off the paint and start over (instruments only).

I'll edit a bit later, and post a couple of photos.

Thanks everyone.

hi all, just a quick question, on the F-14D, is there any difference between the RIO and pilot's ejection seats ? i believe that the pilot has an extra lever, but is this visible on the hasegawa 1/48 kit seats ? i been scrutinising the two and they look identical. this is the NACES ejection system we are talking about here, not the MB.7

the cockpit is about to be flat coated and then drybrushed as per David Aungst's article on hyperscale, and ive also done some other subassemblies. apologies for alot of talking and no pictures, dad has the digital camera and he is only coming back later tonight from china.

Thanks guys for the kind words. Yes, those are the totally stock kit cockpits. I've been hoarding my Black Box F-14pits for a while now (3 A's, 2 A/B Bombcat, & 3 D sets). I've got 2 of the True Details pit sets for the Monogram kit. I'm thinking of doing an early F-14A+ from VF-74 with the TD set. I really need to knock off a lot of rust off my skills before I screw up a resin pit set.

I will admit that the small size of the photo hides some of the flaws. My skills are pretty rusty. Thats one of the reasons I've decided not to continue to build the Hasegawa, but do another Monogram instead. I've got plenty of both in the stash. Time is another consideration, as I have only about 4-6 hours a week to do any quality work. I'm way too tired after a typical workday to not screw something up. Weekends are pretty much spent doing house work, spending time with my daughter, & my lady takes up the rest of my free time. Oh well. Its a good thing I've built a few of the Monogram kits over the last 20 years or so.

Chris Ish

I just bought a 50-lb. bag of Sacrete at Lowe's, I can use that to fill in that big- gap. Wait! I can kill two birds with one stone...all that concrete will eliminate any need for additional weight to hold down the nose gear!

armorman - That's not a bad idea, I'm just afraid we'd get accused of insider trading. Plus I'm mostly using Tamiya putty.

MACooke- I'd suggest you use the road crew that filled the pot hole out the front of my house to fill that gap. Problem is, you'll probably be waiting a month til it gets filled.

Thanks bstrump! I just love it when others agree with me...

Here are my seats, from the Black Box cockpit set.



I still need to dullcoat them, and add the "crotch pull" ejection handle.

yo fellas! Well, the wash is applied over a nice coat of future so the cockpit is officially done tomorrow(yeah!) Through it all the cockpit looks very good and with the seats in I'll be pretty impressed. The next task this weekend will be to complete the lower fuselage and assemble the top and bottom. Aside from housecleaning on Saturday time should be plentiful.
bstrump- don't be bashful- admit you did a heck of a job! BTW the F-14D Naces seat looks like a wuss seat compared to the GRU ver.
Mitchell- I don't know what to tell ya on that crevasse in the front of that instr. panel... Maybe fill it with asphalt or concrete? Hehehaha- kidding! I did that with my first BB cockpit because it was not real specific on where to cut. I ended up building a styrene seat for some putty and sanded until there was no more sand paper... sounds like the direction you are headed too.
What do you think Daniel? Should we invest in Squadron Putty on the Stock Market??
ch47guy- ! With those nice cockpit shots I definitely think you got the goods to join this build! Welcome aboard.

Hey ch47guy! aboard! I was hoping I'd snag a few more by posting in the A/C forum! Great progrees so far, BTW! MACooke, I'm actually trying to do three birds in this GB; an A, B and a D! I'm not sure if I'll be successful though. I think your right about the seats. The SJU-17 is so F-18! It doesn't belong in the Cat.

Regarding my earlier post about ejection seats, I think the Mk GRU-7A seats are way cooler looking than the bland SJU-17 NACES...see below, and compare for yourself. These are from the ejection site.

The seat from the F-14A, A+, and (I believe) B models...



And the seat from the F-14D...



The proof is right there, fellahs, right there in the puddin'!

Face curtain pull rings = COOL FACTOR !

Hey ch47guy, are those stock cockpits? They both look great!

I'm really leaning towards doing an F-14 in Air Force colors, as if the AF may have used one as an agressor. Can you imagine the F-14 in Israeli colors, but a lizard scheme? I, for one, think that would look awesome.

Guess who got a job offer? Guess who got a job offer??